Individual discrete components are typically fabricated on a silicon wafer before being cut into separate semiconductor die and assembled in a package. The package provides protection against impact and corrosion, holds the contact pins or leads which are used to connect from external circuits to the device, and dissipates heat produced in the device.
Wire bonds may be used to make electrical connections between an integrated circuit and the leads of the package with fine wires connected from the package leads and bonded to conductive pads on the semiconductor die. The leads external to the package may be soldered to a printed circuit board. Modern surface mount devices eliminate the need for drilled holes through circuit boards and have short metal leads or pads on the package that can be secured by reflow soldering.
Many devices are encapsulated with an epoxy plastic that provides adequate protection of the semiconductor devices and mechanical strength to support the leads and handling of the package. Some integrated circuits have no-lead packages such as quad-flat no-leads (QFN) and dual-flat no-leads (DFN) devices that physically and electrically couple integrated circuits to printed circuit boards. Flat no-lead devices, also known as micro leadframe (MLF) and small outline no-leads (SON) devices, are based on a surface-mount technology that connects integrated circuits to the surfaces of printed circuit boards without through-holes in the printed circuit boards. Perimeter lands on the package provide electrical coupling to the printed circuit board.
A dielectric is an electrical insulator that can be polarized by an applied electric field. When a dielectric is placed in an electric field, electric charges do not flow through the material as they do in a conductor, but only slightly shift from their average equilibrium positions causing dielectric polarization. Because of dielectric polarization, positive charges are displaced toward the field and negative charges shift in the opposite direction. This creates an internal electric field which reduces the overall field within the dielectric itself. If a dielectric is composed of weakly bonded molecules, those molecules not only become polarized, but also reorient so that their symmetry axis aligns to the field. While the term “insulator” implies low electrical conduction, “dielectric” is typically used to describe materials with a high polarizability which is expressed by a number called the relative permittivity (εr). The term insulator is generally used to indicate electrical obstruction while the term dielectric is used to indicate the energy storing capacity of the material by means of polarization.
Permittivity is a material property that expresses the force between two point charges in the material. Relative permittivity is the factor by which the electric field between the charges is decreased or increased relative to vacuum. Relative permittivity is also commonly known as dielectric constant.
Other features of the present embodiments will be apparent from the accompanying drawings and from the detailed description that follows.